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Comptroller says He’ll Pay Back the Money

When the city council rescinded a motion to remove City Treasurer Richard Fortucci as the city’s chief financial officer, that was the moment when City Comptroller John Pace should have given up the extra money he was receiving as the interim CFO.

This is what the city’s legal department told him to do some months back when the mayor was after Fortucci’s job claiming he has been doing a poor job of watching the city’s money.

That was then.

This is now.

Last week, at a hearing called by Fortucci, Comptroller Pace frankly made very little sense explaining that he didn’t want to give up the extra money, even saying at one point, more or less, “Why would I put a request in writing that would result in a pay reduction for myself?”

Ubelievably enough, this was the thinking or the city’s comptroller who, following a three hour meeting, agreed to pay the city back $2,839.76 of added salary he received which he should not have accepted between Feb. 17 and March 31.

For her part, the mayor was unable to recall a conversation she apparently had with Pace in which he claimed he told her he wasn’t going to fight for the money.

The bottom line is that Pace remains unrepentant about taking money that was clearly, incontestably not his to take following Fortucci’s reinstatement as the city’s CEO.

Pace, it appeared, believes he did nothing wrong.

In fact, he tried to blame Fortucci for paying the extra salary to him – a rather bizarre turn of events.